Leave management is a balancing act where managers need to tactfully ensure that they have enough staff to perform daily tasks and urgent project requirements without any hindrances or glitches. Although this does not take up a significant amount of time for any manager, it is yet a crucial function. There are a number of aspects that need to be taken into consideration. It’s not about merely approving and disapproving leaves according to the whims of the manager – it requires significant planning. There are HR policies to be adhered to and project resources to be accounted for. On the other hand, employee satisfaction too needs to be factored in. Leave management is one of the strategic tasks for any organization.

While many organizations do not take leave management seriously, research shows that poor leave management negatively impacts the business performance. It has a direct impact on the project deliverables and employee morale. Some of the aspects of business that are directly impacted by leve management are:

Meeting project deadlines

The project delivery schedules go for a toss – especially when the most crucial employees on the projects go on extended leaves. The managers either need to find replacement resources of deny leaves. This makes the situation tense and causes delays as the new employee onboard takes some time settling in the project. Well, committing project delivery dates managers can account for leaves too.

Legal issues

At the same time, every country has some minimum leave ‘rules’ for employees. There are a number of criteria to be considered – medical leaves, national holidays, family emergencies etc. Leave compliance is essential for every organization.

Emotional factors

Well, being granted leaves when they want it the most is one of the greatest factors that contribute to employee satisfaction. Family responsibilities sometimes are one of the main reasons employees avail leaves. Organizations need to cater to such needs too.

Managers need to keep themselves acquainted with the employee leave trends. Festival seasons are the most common ‘times’ when most of the employees avail leaves.

Technology plays a very important role in leave management these days. Maintaining leave data and managing a large number of employees could be quite a daunting task – if done manually. With leave management software, you can significantly simplify the leave management and help streamline the organization’s leave data. Here are some of the key benefits of automated leave management systems: